Everyone is eager for the new and refreshed Wi-Fi. Our current Wi-Fi was built at a time where Wi-Fi was a "nice to have," and not the critical business function it is today. As a student recently shared, "I should not have to think about Wi-Fi service. It should be automatic, like breathing." The Wi-Fi engineers agree, and we know we have a lot of work ahead.
The Wi-Fi upgrade efforts the Network Core team is undertaking will enhance user experience and will prepare the university for future growth in technology. While Wi-Fi will never match a wired connection in speed and bandwidth, usage will be taking a step forward in quality with updates that will bring it to its full capacity. OIT anticipates these efforts to be ongoing from 2023 through 2025.
You’ll see our work in progress street signs in front of buildings where work is occurring. Following are campus updates on the project.
CU Denver Updates
New equipment and upgrades have occurred over the last couple years in several CU Denver buildings such as the City Heights Residence Hall and Learning Commons, the CU Building, and earlier this year – in a joint effort with Metropolitan State University and AHEC – the Arts Building. In addition, upgrades will be made in the North Classroom, King Center, Emanual Gallery, and the Ninth Street historic area. Updates to the North Classroom began in December 2022, as well as other buildings at CU Denver.
CU Anschutz Updates
Specific locations on CU Anschutz for Phase 1 of work which is now underway include the Education 1 and Education 2 North and South buildings to assist student learning needs, the three Research buildings, and Fulginiti Pavilion. The Education buildings have unique needs, and OIT is partnering with our contractor ANM to serve a very bandwidth-hungry testing application, similar to Proctorio. Even with these efforts, due to the nature of software like Proctorio, there may still be limitations to what a Wi-Fi experience can offer.
The work in the Education buildings will be primarily focused on the first two floors where challenges have been reported with the current Wi-Fi usage. Installation on the first two floors of Education 1 was completed on Thursday, January 26.
Follow our Progress
As Wi-Fi engineers continue to work across campus, signs will be posted in front of the impacted buildings and there may be some disruption to Wi-Fi services during installation. Stay on top of all planned technical outages via our website. We look forward to working on this exciting project to revive Wi-Fi on the campuses, and we are thankful and appreciate the help from campus leadership, faculty, staff and students.
Jamie Price is the Senior Network Engineer in the Office of Information Technology.
Contact the author: UCD-OIT-Outreach@ucdenver.edu.